Of course I am. My point is............ Hang on, I think I had a point. Oh well. I can't remember.

Your point is actually quite obvious. That's not the point. It's whether or not you have the courage to just spell it out. Then I could just disagree with you explicitly instead of implicitly. You, like the Rope Guy, are just missing the point of this thread. It has no higher purpose. It's not meant to be interpreted as "What is the essence of the typical Zappa fan?" it was just intended to be a place where anyone who wasn't shy about themselves could just say something about who they are. Non existent being forbid.

Anyone who comes here regularly - not that I'm saying that confers any special authority on such a person - and has been paying attention, would know that I'm partly reacting to the fact that some fucking tosser here has tried to infer things about me that are so far from the truth it's ridiculous. None the less, I thought it would be nice to have a place where we can just talk about what we are and do. But of course, there will always be negative responses, people who can't resist taking the piss, but that speaks volumes as well.

And for Rope Leash, this is me after a few drinks. Deplorable, isn't it?

_________________The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

And Poly, under a mild influence you're still writing more coherently than most others do stone cold sober. I find a few drinks, or a few whatevers, can help lubricate the verbiage and get the thought processes flowing. No real harm in that.

And for Rope Leash, this is me after a few drinks. Deplorable, isn't it?

I hope your fall from abstinence was not caused by anything unpleasant...

Not at all - quite the opposite - although there is some bad stuff going down with my Mother at the moment, but that's not driving me to drink. And, it's not a fall! The explanation begins in post 2 of this thread and I've been thinking about taking it up again for a long time as I'm basically finding it very difficult to justify why I'm depriving myself. I just got used to not drinking.

Anyway, it's been over a week now. I enjoy stout, dark ales, some white wines - not sweet ones - and the odd deep dark red. I haven't gone on any binges and the jury's still out on whether I like the way it makes me feel over all. Nobody's noticed much difference in my personality - I was born uninhibited.

_________________The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Of course I am. My point is............ Hang on, I think I had a point. Oh well. I can't remember.

Your point is actually quite obvious. That's not the point. It's whether or not you have the courage to just spell it out. Then I could just disagree with you explicitly instead of implicitly. You, like the Rope Guy, are just missing the point of this thread. It has no higher purpose. It's not meant to be interpreted as "What is the essence of the typical Zappa fan?" it was just intended to be a place where anyone who wasn't shy about themselves could just say something about who they are. Non existent being forbid.

Anyone who comes here regularly - not that I'm saying that confers any special authority on such a person - and has been paying attention, would know that I'm partly reacting to the fact that some fucking tosser here has tried to infer things about me that are so far from the truth it's ridiculous. None the less, I thought it would be nice to have a place where we can just talk about what we are and do. But of course, there will always be negative responses, people who can't resist taking the piss, but that speaks volumes as well.

And for Rope Leash, this is me after a few drinks. Deplorable, isn't it?

I would ordinarily respond to the foregoing, but under the circumstances I think it would be pointless.

I'm surrounded by would be comedians who should not give up their day jobs.

When I'm in a good mood or just full of meself,someone always sez: What are you on or how much have you had to drink? Because they all seem to know that I couldn't be funny or have a good time without the help of illigal substances,or abusing the legal ones! It makes me very angry! It's like if you've got long hair and your happy or just smiling it has to be from something other than me just being me.It's an insult to me and makes the person saying that crap,look and sound as ignorant as they really are! They're usually bored and unamusing people,who have nothing new to say anyway. Fuckin' Pojama People!

Took me a while to get my head around all this and I might just recant and retract the whole lot if I decide that this is too much for such a very public place. But at this very point in time, I could care less what others think. It could all be a pack of lies.

I'm the first son of English parents who emigrated to Australia shortly before I was born, just north of Melbourne.

Both my parents grew up in Epsom, Surrey (England) and have always been horse people and the lifestyle that that engenders has gone a long way towards defining that which is them as well as that which is me.

My Dad passed up an art scholarship as a kid to become a steeplechase jockey until a horse landed on him, putting a quick end to that career. He also was lucky enough to be caught up in the last days of National Service and was sent to serve with the King's Troop (the Royal Horse Artillery) where he and a friend immediately got sick of shoveling horse shit and taking bullshit from officer-grade upper class twits so they walked off the job, which caught them both a stretch in Colchester Military Corrective Training Centre (the Glasshouse).

My mother. A horse person through and through, she was always active in animal rights (which eventualy led to me and my brother being accomplices during a night-time raid where she stole a couple of horses from an illegal butcher). After doing the activist and a mod-type thing (she had a scooter and all) in the early '60s she got into horse training where she met my Dad on Epsom Downs.

But enough backstory - back to me. Shortly after I was born in Australia homesickness started to wear at their marriage so off we went, back to England. Not having enough to float all three of us home, my Dad put me and my mother on a cruise ship and stowed away on a cargo ship where he learned how to cook on a boat and surprisingly little Portuguese.

Shortly after my brother was born back in Epsom, homesickness turned into sick-of-being-home and off we went to Canada. My parents had a rocky marriage at the best of times and split up shortly after we emigrated. I still think she was a pretty good, albeit strict, mother; although hindsight leads me to believe she was perhaps a bit of a sociopath. Once in Canada my Dad eventually established himself as a harnessmaker which, due to it being a bit of a niche market, he still does today at the age of 72. I get on with him just fine and have always had the greatest respect for him.

My mother eventually remarried when I was 14. A drunken and violent Lonesome Cowboy Bert-type of a lout, 3-piece sky-blue polyester suit, string tie, shitkicker boots and all. Not surprisingly, things went south quickly with him but the evil fuck had bitten off more than he could chew when it came to my mothers' temper. She was a lot quicker to pick up a kitchen knife or a shovel than he any of his many guns and that usually ended the discussion. She stubbornly gave as good as she got before finally kicking him out for good in rural Alberta for the one crime she wouldn't tolerate; habitual unemployment. I'd already left by then; at 15 they couldn't stop me leaving and my Dad helped me with rent so I could graduate high school. My brother moved in with my Dad and his shiny new wife shortly thereafter.

By the time I left home I'd lost count of the number of times we'd moved. I know it was well over twenty with over a half dozen different schools in the mix. I probably moved at least fifteen more times myself before I came to the realisation that I didn't have to and started trying to think ahead. I've had lots of jobs, a few of them satisfying, even fewer with a future, but again I've found myself slowing down. I still get a little anxious though, when I realise I've been in the same house and the same job for ten years.

I've done bad things and paid the consequences. I've done good things and paid the consequences. I got married and finally started learning how to be an adult human. I was lucky enough to find a woman who's been able to tolerate me thus far through the last eighteen years, including eleven years of marriage.

Two years ago a friend and I rode out west and back on our motorcycles. He on one bought specifically for the trip, and me on one that I'd owned for 10 years and rebuilt myself. And as soon as we got back my wife and I flew to the states where I held my mother's hand for three hours while she died horribly in a hospital in the middle-of-fucking-nowhere Montana from the ravages of multiple cancers. Despite the circumstances, I'm glad we got that final slice of time but I still feel terribly sorry for her new husband of four years, who is a truly decent, gentle and now solitary man. Those four years were probably the most peaceful, uncomplicated and well-deserved years of her life.

Today, I'm a 45 year old male who still doesn't know what he wants to do if and when he grows up. Maybe tomorrow will tell.

I've already described my introduction to Zappa elsewhere recently and feel no urge to regurgitate that as well.

I've got two dogs, a cat and a turtle, all of whom were rescued in one way or another. I still get on better with animals than most people. A dogs' lies are always fairly transparent.

And I'm a would-be comedian who's been told repeatedly not to give up his day job.

I'm surrounded by would be comedians who should not give up their day jobs.

... they all seem to know that I couldn't be funny or have a good time without the help of illigal substances,or abusing the legal ones! It makes me very angry! ...

One of my students recently, during a first year consulting session, said I must be on drugs. He's obviously had some bad experiences with teachers in the past. Like I said, I'm uninhibited, and I'm passionate when I teach and I don't treat my students like invading aliens. What must I be on?

_________________The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've been thinking about all this stuff since Poly first started this thread. Got me thinking about a lot of stuff that I hadn't for a while. In fact, I got a little stressed because details had started to blur and fade so I actually created a Notepad doc to write stuff down as I remembered it so I could make sense of it and get shit in order; more for myself than anything else. I wasn't sure that I was even going to post it but then I figured, what the hell, I'm not naming names and internet words can't hurt me so there you go. I know that I kind of buzzed over the last 20 years but, with a couple of exceptions, it's been a life more ordinary. Plus, I figure that in the last 4 years, you lot know as much about me as I do...

And I'm still adding to my Notepad doc as things percolate so I might add more at a later date. I'll work on 'my mother the horse thief' too, Bonny. But then I'll have to include the part where that same summer I came home from school and our house was fitted out with new (to us) furniture as well as a small collection of SS paraphernalia...

And I'm still adding to my Notepad doc as things percolate so I might add more at a later date. I'll work on 'my mother the horse thief' too, Bonny. But then I'll have to include the part where that same summer I came home from school and our house was fitted out with new (to us) furniture as well as a small collection of SS paraphernalia...

We may need to thank Poly for sparking deep introspection and in a way self therapeutic examinations of our pasts...

One of my students recently, during a first year consulting session, said I must be on drugs. He's obviously had some bad experiences with teachers in the past. Like I said, I'm uninhibited, and I'm passionate when I teach and I don't treat my students like invading aliens. What must I be on?

I had a few teachers who were passionate and animated about their subjects. Just like they still cared about what they did and were desperate to impart it upon their students. And those were the only classes I ever did at all well in. Funny thing was, they were the ones that I assumed weren't on drugs, it was the flat-liners that I always figured were either already dead inside or packed full of mood-leveling farmaceuticals. (I could have left it ' mood-leveling *SPAM*', as I found that quite funny, but somehow it failed to get my point across....)

I'm surrounded by would be comedians who should not give up their day jobs.

Well, OK. I've always wanted to document my life in some way for my children and maybe this would be good practice or even a rough draft. I think the best way would be to present installments. The serial KillUgly as it were. I have reservations about revealing too much about myself on the internet, but on the other hand, who gives a fuck (I can always leave out the dirty or embarrassing parts, right?). Thanks Sam I Am and Poly for the inspiration and Gail for the platform. I have actually considered the idea for a book about Zappa fans and make no doubt about it, Trendmonger would be among the main characters. Stay tuned for Chapter 1.

Who is online

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum